No thermal scanners at seaports amid coronavirus scare

No thermal scanners at seaports amid coronavirus scare

The entry of tourists, especially from China arriving
through the Tagbilaran City Port pose a threat in the heightened alert on the
spread of Coronavirus here.

This is due to the absence of thermal scanners which will
detect the body temperature of the passengers.

Everyday, some 9,000 passengers from Cebu, mostly
tourists will disembark from Ocean Jet or SuperCat, a much bigger volume
of passengers as compared to the daily arrivals at the Bohol Pangllao
International Airport (BPIA).

Most of these tourists will mingle with the local residents
as they will go on a countryside tour, usually partaking their meals at the
Loboc floating restaurants. Some of these arrivals will check-in at the
various resorts here.

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Port Manager James Gantalao of the Philippine Ports
Authority (PPA) admitted to the Chronicle that there are thermal
scanners at the seaport arrival area unlike at the airport in Panglao. He said
considering the “higher risk” of Bohol being a tourist destination,
these scanners are needed as this is the only way to detect persons
contaminated with the virus

The arrivals of Chinese nationals will expose tour guides,
van drivers, food servers and souvenir shop personnel to direct contracts with
these arriving tourists while they will be in the province.

For the day-trippers, it will just be an eight-hour
interaction with the locals.

However, for those who will be billeted in Panglao resorts,
they will have longer interaction inside the resorts.

Josephine Remolador of the Bohol Tourism Office (BTO)
confirmed yesterday that tourists from China comprise the biggest chunk of
arrivals since 2018, followed by Koreans.

The risk of having persons contaminated with the virus
remains high since they can not be noticed nor block their entry to Bohol
without basis of medical data like the one coming from the thermal scanner.

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AIRPORT

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Some 172 Chinese nationals arrived 7:20am last Friday at the
Bohol Panglao International AIrport on board a direct flight of Pan Pacific
AIrlines from Chengdu City, capital of southewestern’s Sichuan province,
China.

No passenger was asked to proceed to the quarantine section
as all passengers did not show any signs of the virus contamination after
passing through the thermal scanner.

A body temperature of more than 36.5 degrees Celsius will
cause the scanner to alarm and the passenger will be stopped for further
quarantine inspection

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There is one functioning thermal scanner to monitor and
detect passengers with heightened body temperature which may indicate illness.
The device however only covers arriving international passengers.

In fact, the five-year-old child from Wuhan, China who was
earlier admitted in a Cebu City hospital for showing symptoms of coronavirus
infection had already been found negative of the virus.

Also, the two Chinese tourists who sought medical attention
at Gov. Celestino Gallares Hospital and Ramiro Community Hospital have already
been found out of danger.

Lopez clarified that the 36-year-old patient at Ramiro
Community Hospital who had been monitored for possible infection with the new
strain of coronavirus was from Guangdong, China and not from Wuhan, China.

He said they visit the patient as constant as twice a day
and constant communication is maintained; and it was learned that the patient
has now recovered from fever and colds on his third day at the hospital.

In his assessment, Lopez said the patient’s condition was
not serious and that it is now certain that he was not infected with the new
strain of coronavirus that is deadly.

Nevertheless, the health authorities await the results of
the laboratory tests on the specimen taken from him.

The other patient from China, two-year-old child, had
already returned to China with his mother.

Lopez also explained that the coronavirus has six strains
and the new strain from Wuhan, China is the seventh, if confirmed.

As of now, the scientists of the World Health Organization
is in the process of confirming the new strains, he added.

Four of the six known strains are the benign ones such as
the common viruses, according to Lopez as he further explained that the
ordinary cough, colds and fever which are symptoms of viral flu is actually a
coronavirus infection caused by the ordinary coronavirus.

In viral flu, the patient can recover by just taking a leave
from work to be able to rest at home and take medicine for two to three days,
Lopez added.

He further explained that these ordinary types of
coronavirus are the ones experienced in ordinary cases of coughs and colds
eversince.

The two other strains of known coronavirus are those that
cause the SARS and MerS.

To differentiate, Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)
and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) have been known to be deadly as
there had been actual cases of mortality in the Philippines due to these two.

The popular case was the MERS infection that killed a
Filipino nurse who returned home from Middle East and her father.

As MERS is “a viral respiratory disease caused by a novel
coronavirus”, it is also called the Middle East respiratory syndrome
coronavirus (MERS‐CoV) that was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012”.

SARS is also considered the “serious form of pneumonia”
characterized by severe breathing difficulty.

Lopez said the WHO is now watching on the seventh strain of
coronavirus has just been established in December 2019 in Wuhan, China where it
was traced by scientists in China that it came from snakes and bats at a market
in Wuhan province.

It had been established that the virus is zoonotic-
-transmitted from animals to humans.

However, scientists are still researching how the seventh
strain of coronavirus in Wuhan is transmitted to humans, Lopez shared.

He also shared that as reported in international news
networks, the new coronavirus already caused 17 deaths and sent 500 patients to
hospitals in Wuhan, China.

Lopez allayed fears of the public as Wuhan already declared
lockdown, while officials there are doing their best to control its spread.

Lopez also explained that other than producing the ordinary
cough and colds, coronavirus leads to pneumonia which is the leading cause of
death.

He said that a virus is passed on from human to human
through droplets when one sneezes and coughs and these droplets happen to carry
the virus and the person next to him catches the virus through the droplets.

Lopez said the virus specifically affects the respiratory
tract- -from the nose to the lungs.

He warned that susceptible to the illness are the “very old”
and “the very young” age bracket, and those who have low resistance such as
thoe who have pre-existing illness are also susceptible

Immune system is the top factor in viral illnesses, Lopez
added.

He also explained that virus is self-limiting which means
that it can either lead to “clearance of pathogens or death of the host”.

In fact, there were cases in Wuhan where those who got the
coronavirus had eventually recovered their immune system.

TWG FORMED

The provincial government created a technical working group
(TWG) for Bohol to remain in control of the situation.

This, after the province itself has not been spared from the
coronavirus scare after two suspected cases were reported on Wednesday.

Acting Gov. Rene Relampagos said that two Chinese nationals,
aged two and 36, who showed symptoms of the disease were taken to separate
hospitals in Tagbilaran City.

He, however, called on the public to remain calm as both
cases remained unconfirmed.

Health authorities took from the two patients swab samples
which were sent to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine and Australia
to verify if they were indeed infected with the coronavirus and identify the strain.

Both patients were allowed to leave the hospitals following
the checkup but were placed under tight monitoring.